


Overture

by skeptique



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Domestic Fluff, M/M, violin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28060248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeptique/pseuds/skeptique
Summary: Draco picks up the violin again.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50
Collections: December 2020





	Overture

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to DevilRising and Vukovich as betas.

Harry first hears Draco playing on a summer morning when they've come to the Manor. There is a lot of stopping and starting, and the music is quiet and disjointed, like he's running through parts of different pieces by memory.

"I didn't know you played," Harry says, startling Draco badly enough that he swears and drops his bow with a loud clatter. Draco puts his violin behind him as if Harry is going to forget about the instrument once it disappears from view. 

"I haven't had a lesson in a decade," Draco says. Harry tries to imagine a tiny Draco Malfoy playing the violin and watches him put it back in its green velvet lined black case. Draco picks his bow up off the polished floor and loosens it efficiently before placing it in the case. 

"Do you miss it?"

Someone stamped Draco's initials across the top of the violin case in gold lettering, and it locks itself slowly, as if the latching charm is wearing out. Harry frowns. He could fix that.

"The lessons? No," Draco says. "I miss playing with other people sometimes. Greg's mum used to get us all together to play. We performed a little holiday concert some years." 

"Maybe you should try again this year." 

"Playing the classics poorly is much less charming when you're almost thirty."

But Draco sends off an owl to Goyle Estate the next day, and Harry tries not to pry. Draco can still be a private person, even after a few years together, and Harry has learned the hard way to leave Draco alone about the small things. 

At dinners with Ron and Hermione, Harry watches him tap unconsciously on the table and mimic some fingering that's giving him trouble. Playing has unlocked something calm and dreamy in Draco, and Harry's heart swells. 

In the next few months, Harry almost never catches Draco practicing, but he can tell when Draco has been biting his lip hard during. Every once in a while, a snippet of a melody floats down to the study when Harry is plotting ward constructions on parchment. Before Draco seldom brought guests to Grimmauld, but now his friends come over to practice with him, as does Mrs. Goyle. 

Draco brings less work home from Ministry Revenue, and Harry follows. Harry discovers he doesn't mind the soft scraping of calluses from Draco's left hand as they trail over his face and his body.

At the concert, their small orchestra plays a little too boisterously, but they are all having fun doing it. Draco uses a small break in playing to wink at Harry, and he can feel himself grinning back, even though he is in stiff dress robes, and the chairs are terrible on his back. 

Harry, of course, is the first to stand when they finish and he cheers, even though Draco told him no one did that for classical music. Others followed. Draco deserved that much, Harry thought. 


End file.
